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It seems that anhydrous ammonia (AA) applications and planting may fall very close together on the timeline of events this spring. This could be concerning with drying soils and lack of significant rainfall chances in the near future.

I've had a lot of questions/discussions this week about planting corn. I had some growers get started Monday, some others were going to start towards the middle or tail end of this week, a few were going to wait until Monday, and a few were undecided. When to start planting was probably...

Bean leaf beetle adults are susceptible to cold weather and most will die when the air temperature falls below 14°F (-10°C). However, they have adapted to winter by protecting themselves under plant debris and loose soil. An overwintering survival model developed at ISU in 2000 is helpful for...

The rapid spread of herbicide resistant weeds threatens the current Midwest production system. Introduction of new herbicide resistance traits will provide additional management options for resistant-prone weeds such as waterhemp, giant ragweed, and marestail; however, these systems must be used...

Research can be frustrating. For the past 5 years, my lab has been evaluating seed treatments on soybean. In an effort to detect an effect of seed treatment on soybean stand and yield, in 2015 we planted our trials very early (mid-April). A few days later, it rained, soil temperatures dropped...

As I did some reading in preparation of writing this blog, I found there are various definitions of soil health. And I am sure for as many definitions as there are, we each have our own ideas as to what defines soil health. The USDA-NRCS Soil Health web page defines soil health as "the continued...

You may have heard of brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), an invasive insect making its way across the U.S. The first live detections of BMSB in Iowa were in 2011. Laura Jesse, Director of the Plant and Insect Diagnostic Lab, has now confirmed BMSB in 12 Iowa counties (see a map...

Meaghan and Bob’s blog posts on weeds, and seeing a floater spraying yellow herbicide in 30 mph winds on Monday, reminded me to do an update on our newest problem child in the weeds world, Palmer amaranth. While we hoped that the few infestations scattered across Iowa could be contained,...

Alison and I spent the week editing the nearly final version of two national publications about corn and soybean diseases. These will be published by our society, APS Press, like the Fungicides for Field Crops ...

I was curious to compare growing degree days (GDDs) over the last couple summers. It seemed like 2014 and 2015 were cool, wet springs with a slow start for insects. But I wanted to check actual temperature history instead of relying on my memory. I used the ISU Agronomy...

While going through the extension winter gauntlet, I talked a lot about corn rootworm. It is one of most important pests in the Midwest and should be on your mind when deciding on hybrids and insecticides. I often got questions about using stacked and pyramided corn hybrids, and there seemed to...

Generally speaking, warmer winters mean more insects are likely survive because they aren’t exposed to lower lethal temperatures. An early spring can also benefit insects, particularly those species we consider field crop pests, because they are physically larger when crops emerge and can cause...

It’s not easy for insects to survive Iowa winters. Some literally can’t - they freeze to death or migrate away to warmer climates. But many insects have adapted to cold temperatures by entering diapause, which is like hibernation. Diapause is a developmental arrest to survive adverse seasons...

Many of you know about naturally-occurring entomopathogens in the soil that can kill or suppress insects. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a well-known example of a bacteria that kills insects, and was eventually included in plants as a transgenic protein. My Ph.D. student, Eric...

The overwintering monarch population in Mexico was reported last week and has increased for the second consecutive year (Figure 1). Four hectares of forest (9.9 acres) were covered with monarchs, up from the low of 0.7 hectares in the winter of 2013-14. While this is good news, the low numbers...